Covering some 1,500 acres, China’s in-progress military command center—what U.S. intelligence thinks it is, China not having issued a press release—will be at least ten times as big as the Pentagon and will probably contain “large, hardened bunkers to protect Chinese military leaders during any conflict—including potentially a nuclear war” (Financial Ties, January 30, 2025).
The PLA is also rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal and working to better integrate its different branches. Military experts believe the PLA’s lack of integration is among its biggest weaknesses compared with the US armed forces.
“If confirmed, this new advanced underground command bunker for the military leadership, including President Xi as the chairman of the Central Military Commission, signals Beijing’s intent to build not only a world-class conventional force but also an advanced nuclear warfighting capability,” said Dennis Wilder, the former head of China analysis for the CIA….
Renny Babiarz, a former imagery analyst at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency who has analysed imagery of the area, said there were at least 100 cranes working over a 5 sq km area developing underground infrastructure….
One former senior US intelligence official said that while the PLA’s current headquarters in central Beijing was fairly new it was not designed to be a secure combat command centre.
“China’s main secure command centre is in the Western Hills, north-east of the new facility, and was built decades ago at the height of the cold war,” said the former official. “The size, scale and partially buried characteristics of the new facility suggest it will replace the Western Hills complex as the primary wartime command facility.”
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington denied knowing anything about this project but did assure the Financial Times that China is “committed to the path of peaceful development and a defence policy that is defensive in nature.” So, all the reports of CCP aggression, including the constant war practicing in the Taiwan Strait—all fiction?
A few months ago, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific command, Admiral Samuel Paparo, said that the People’s Republic of China is “ ‘very close’ to the point where the ‘fig leaf of an exercise’ could mask preparations for an attack” on Taiwan.
